It’s been a pretty bizarre summer so far. All the nice weather at the beginning of lockdown seems long gone and we are back to the typical overcast, muggy conditions of Britain.
Things on the whole though seem to be improving slowly but surely as businesses, shops, restaurants start to re-open. Shows have now started back up again which is great news for the equestrian community. We have already had a successful couple of outings to one of our local show centres, Felbridge, for some BS with the younger horses – prepping them for when we start Eventing next month. Although we’ve had a decent amount of rain, ground conditions can be very variable at this time of year so we are sticking to the jumping and schooling for a little bit longer – we’ve waited this long, another month isn’t going to do any harm at all…
We have welcomed another very special addition to the team – Mini Mouse! She’s our very special foal from the wonderful mummy Pioneer Silvie – who won individual bronze at the Junior Europeans in 2013. She is perfect in every single way and a huge thanks must go to Charlie at Cranbrook Stud and Paula from Sussex Equine Hospital as it has been a long time coming, with plenty of disappointments along the way. She is out of Nick Gauntlett’s Party Trick, who is himself out of Chilly Morning – so we are very excited about her future….only another 4 years to wait!
We have been out XC schooling and had a great time running round the flagged courses at Tweseldown this week – a perfect opportunity to jump a course without necessarily the pressures of actually competing. The horses are raring to go and so are we. I hope everybody that has managed to get out Eventing has enjoyed themselves – a special shoutout and thank you to the volunteers and event organisers who have been working around the clocks to make sure that we have been able to return to the sport whilst maintaining social distancing. It’s now very much down to us as riders that we abide by all the rules and protocols so that we can continue to enjoy competing this year!
